Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America

Margret Lock is a preeminent medical anthropologist, and in this work she explores the connection between culture and how people experience their own health/illness. It is difficult for non-anthropologists to understand how we think of culture. Many people think of culture as something static, rather than the web of meaning and symbols we use to interpret everything around us, including universal biological functions. Without culture, in many ways we honestly wouldn't know how to feel about anything. The mind/body connection isn't a dichotomy, rather it is a fact of our evolutionary biology. Lock shows us this in a way that the lay public can understand with concrete examples of cross-cultural parallels.

ENCOUNTERS WITH AGING is a fascinating book examining the contrasting cultural constructions of aging and menopause in Japan and North America. Lock is a medical anthropologist who has done extensive research on attitudes and practices surrounding menopause among women in Japan and North America. She juxtaposes these women's experiences with a penetrating look at the broader medical and social discourses surrounding aging in the two regions. The book serves as a revealing critique of western medical practices surrounding women and aging. I have very successfully used the book in teaching in both gender studies and medical anthropology classes. It is long yet accessible. The introductory chapter, "Scientific Discourse and Aging Women," is brilliant, witty and cutting--and could be used as a stand-alone piece--challenging readers to rethink western medical constructions of aging and women in a new, feminist light. The book complements well another of California's recent books on aging, women, the body and menopause--WHITE SARIS AND SWEET MANGOES: AGING, GENDER AND BODY IN NORTH INDIA.